Pretense
by Em Mindelan
Summary: I slept with Weiss." SV, VL, and SWeiss. Post-Telling.
1. Vaughn

I really cannot stop writing.

This is the only possible explanation for this fic, I swear. Only I would be crazy enough to start a new WIP the same day I finish a 20,000+ word fic. 

I blame this on the Syd/Weiss clip from "Reunion." 

And if you ever start to doubt what ship this will be in the end, well.....yeah. Read "Playing Hockey" again, okay? :D ;)

TITLE: **Pretense**

SUMMARY: "I slept with Weiss."

TIMELINE: Post-Telling, sometime Season 3.

SHIP: Syd/Weiss, S/V.

RATING: PG-13

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. All JJ's. I promise.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This will be a fic of uncertain length, with parts from both Syd and Vaughn's POV [and possibly Weiss's as well]; but they will all be in second person. There might even be a Lauren POV, but she will most likely not resemble the Lauren we all know and....um, yeah. 

**Pretense**

_1) Vaughn_

You're in an elevator together, on a mission, on your way to some basement somewhere to knock out a bunch of bad guys and steal some sort of gadget that'll help protect your country.

It's important, but no more important than any other mission you've ever been on or ever will go on.

It's just another mission, really, in another desolate place that will be exchanged for another bleak target next week.

The place doesn't matter.

The mission doesn't matter.

After awhile they all seem to blend into one another, anyway, Paris becoming Berlin becoming Moscow becoming London.

You doubt very much that you'll be able to remember very much about the specifics of this mission the week after next, anyway.

She turns off her comm with one quick flick of her wrist, and you can't help watching her move, admiring her grace.

You've never been able to take your eyes off her, and the ring on your finger doesn't stop your eyes from watching her every move.

She turns to you, and the words she says nearly stop your heart.

"I slept with Weiss."

"Okay." It's the only thing you can possibly say, because words escape you. They just…_escape _you, like birds flying just out of your grasp.

You're numb.

You thought she'd move on, _hoped_ she'd move on.

But you never thought it'd be so soon….or in such a way.

There are so many words, questions, _things_ running through your mind.

_what__? _

_how__?_

_when__?_

_why__?_

But you know the answers to these questions, don't you?

_What?_

She slept with Weiss. She spent the night with Weiss. She made love to Weiss. She had sex with Weiss.

There are a thousand ways to phrase it, but none of them obscure the one truth.

_She slept with Weiss._

She kissed him, she touched him, she did countless things to him. She went to bed in his arms, and woke up in them in the mornings.

_This is the truth._

You've never been jealous of your best friend before. But suddenly you think you might be, even though you said _youdidn'tregretmovingon_. Even though you're wearing another woman's ring on your finger.

_How?_

Maybe they got drunk. 

Maybe they were watching a romantic movie…and it just happened.

Maybe she was crying over you in his arms.

But in the end it doesn't really matter how, does it? Because what's done is done, and cannot be undone.

  
This you know all too well.

_When?_

Last night?

A week ago?

Earlier?

Later?

Did she wake up in his arms this morning? 

Does it matter?

It happened. And maybe it'll happen again. And maybe it won't. But it happened.

It's history, in one way or another, whether or not it's the beginning of a new chapter, a new relationship, or a single page, a relationship started and finished on a single piece of paper.

_Why?_

Maybe she still loves you.

Maybe he's just a rebound guy.

Maybe she's using him for comfort sex.

Maybe she doesn't love you anymore.

Maybe she's realised that you're married.

Maybe she's trying to move on.

Maybe she's in love with him.

But does it really matter _exactly_ why she slept with him?

Because you're pretty sure you know why she was in his arms and not yours last night.

And it lies on your left ring finger.

You twist it around, slowly, slowly, slowly.

Yes, you think to yourself, _bitterangrytorn__…you know why._

You think about all these things in a millisecond, but it feels like an eternity, standing there beside her, sensing her body heat, smelling the shampoo she still uses in her hair, the perfume she still wears two years later.

But the most irrational thought that rushes through your head in that instant?

She _can't sleep with him! He's your best friend! _

And suddenly you don't think you'll ever forget this mission, this elevator, this place.

"Is it," you start to say hoarsely, before your throat dries up. 

"Is it serious, you mean?" she says for you.

You can only nod. 

"We're not really sure. It…it just happened, really. We're going to try to make it work, though," she says with a small smile.

You've always hated being lied to, just as she always had.

And so you'd never lied to her, at least not on purpose, and never about important things. 

_Except, says a little voice in the back of your head, _the fact that you loved her, huh, Vaughn?__

You'd always _tried _to tell her the truth. Tried to be honest with her. 

Tried to be the one part of her life that was true and _real_.

Because you knew that she needed that more than she needed false hope and pretty words.

You've always hated being lied to.

But somehow you think that it would be easier to hear her lie to you now and say, "We were both smashed and somehow we ended up in bed. We've both decided it was a hideous mistake and will never happen again. And oh, by the way, I'm still in love with you," than to hear the truth that she's telling you now.

Because it would mean that she hadn't given up on you, hadn't moved on.

That she had cared as much about the death of your relationship as you had cared about her death.

You know it's selfish, you know it's wrong.

But you can't help wanting, even a little, for her be as broken and dejected about your marriage as you've felt sometimes after her return.

It's not that you don't love your wife.

Because you do.

You love your wife. 

But then why does it hurt so much to hear that your ex-girlfriend's sleeping with your best friend?

You should be happy for both of them.

Happy that she's moved on, that she's getting on with her life. That she's finally had another chance to be happy.

Happy that maybe he'll find the girl he's been looking for, that maybe she's it. That maybe he'll get the chance to have some of the happiness you had.

You _should_ be happy.

"I'm happy for you, Syd. For both of you," you say, even forcing a small smile.

You both know you're lying.

You're both very good spies, after all.

Your words are hollow, empty, meaningless, even for a lie, even by a spy such as yourself.

But you lie to yourself in the hope that someday your words will become truth.

That someday maybe you'll be able to make yourself believe your own lies.

_That you're happy for them.___

_That you love your wife more than you love her.___

But someday has never seemed quite as far away as it does right now.

*

Well........there you go. Did you like it? Did you hate it? Let me know. And if you really want to, reviews with quotes are great. I really, really, really love reviews with quotes.


	2. Sydney

_ii) __Sydney_

You'd never imagined this happening.

Not now.

Not here.

Not with him.

You'd never considered him anything else except Vaughn's best friend before…but now you think that maybe he could rapidly becoming something more to you.

You get together to drink tequila and make dinner about once a week.

You talk about everything.

Music, movies, TV shows….how _Friends_ had finally finished.

You talk about everything.

Except his best friend's marriage and what it was like while you were dead.

That's off limits, by some unspoken accord, and it's the way both of you like it.

Because talking about Vaughn and Lauren will only result in talking about Vaughn and _you_, and his feelings for you and your feelings for him…..and that's entirely too raw, too painful a topic to be discussed right now.

But there are some things that you just can't escape forever, and this is one of them.

And so one day you talk about what it was like when they met.

He had been there.

Watching them.

And he tells you that he had been happy to see Vaughn actually smiling.

Actually happy.

And it kills you.

Because you don't want him to be happy.

Not if it's without you.

Not if it's with her.

It's so selfish, so narrow-minded, so cruel.

But it's _ohsotrue._

*

He tells you more about them.

About the time he went out to dinner with them.

How they spent the entire night looking at one another.

Touching one another.

Talking together.

How he had watched them.

You don't need to know this.

But you can't stop listening.

*

He tells you about their wedding, on her father's massive Virginia property.

It was a big wedding, with people from the Agency and from the NSC, and some of her father's colleagues in the Senate all present. 

She wore a dress by an obscure Australian designer whose name is now forever imprinted in your head – 'Collette Dinnigan.' You don't know why you can't erase this trivial detail, not when there are so many more important things that you could remember.

But you know that she wore an off-white Collette Dinnigan gown with beading and lace and, as Weiss says, some sort of feathery thing. And you can't get the image of her walking down the aisle on her father's arm, a smile on her face underneath a beautiful white veil, in the most stunning fairytale dress you've ever seen.

You've replayed their wedding day in your head a thousand times. But every time round they're smiling, and the sun is shining, and everything is _perfect for them._

And you _hate_ it.

*

It is late at night when it happens, totally out of the blue and completely unplanned by both of you.

Because really, you're still in shock, and his best friend's ex-girlfriend.

It's not like you were really going to _plan to sleep together._

You had been crying in his arms again, drunk on tequila and pain and loneliness. 

That's what gets to you the most, you think. Not the fact that he's moved on. Not the fact that you have to work with his wife. Not the fact that you've missed two _years _of your own life.

It's the loneliness that makes you cry yourself to sleep late at night. You miss him, you miss Will, you miss Francie, you miss fitting in somewhere.

You used to have friends who loved and respected you before. You used to know where you were, knew who you were in the whole scheme of things. You didn't used to be the one that they all pointed to and whispered behind their hands about [_ohdidyouhearamnesiatwoyearsgoneboyfriendmarrieddreadfulshameisn'tit?_].

But you are now. 

They've all moved on, and you're still two years in the past, _thinkinghopingdesperately that somehow this has all been a terrible nightmare and that anytime now he'll walk through the door and you'll be back in your ordinary life._

But it's not a nightmare, is it?

It's fucked up and it's twisted and it's _wrong….but it's real. _

It's real and nothing's right anymore and you just want your old life back.

You plead with whatever God there is in the world, late at night, crying, sobbing, screaming, desperately pleading for your own life back.

You don't want this life. You don't want this house, this bed, these clothes. It's not yours. 

Nothing's yours anymore.__

And that's why you're crying.

Your head is buried in his chest, tears running down your face, shoulders shaking. 

But you're no longer sure whether or not you're crying in pain or laughing with the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

"Syd, are you _laughing_?"

"Think about it," _laughsob_, "Eric. I was a _spy_ and a college student….and then I _lost_ two years of my life. How on earth do you lose time itself?" _laughsob "It's not really like losing your car keys or anything, is it?" _

"And then I get back….and my _boyfriend_, the love of my life," _soblaughsob _"Well, this is the funny part – he's gotten _married_! And, oh, one of my best friends is in Witness Protection somewhere in Hicksville, USA, and the other one is dead except there's this crazy clone running around with her face….C'mon, Eric. What's _not to laugh about?"_

"This," he says quietly, before lowering his lips to yours.

And it's really not anything to laugh about, because the emotions running through you at that moment are really _not very funny._

You'd honestly never thought about Eric Weiss in this way. Or in any way except Vaughn's best friend, really.

But as he kisses you, gently at first but then with increasing fervour, you're finding that the _last_ way that you're thinking about Eric Weiss is as your ex-boyfriend's best friend.

Not with the way he kisses. Not with the way his hand is buried in your hair, pulling you closer. Not with the way you're suddenly on his lap, straddling him, responding to his actions with ever rising passion.

You end up in his bed.

And really, all that you can think about after that point is _exactly how underappreciated Eric Weiss is._

*

He was gentle, but you're not surprised by that.

He was good with his hands – but he considered being a magician, so you think that he was probably always good with his hands. So you're not surprised by that either, really.

No, what you're surprised by is exactly how much you enjoy waking up in Eric Weiss's arms, and not just because you're sick of waking up cold and depressed and alone. 

"Syd?"  
  
"Yeah?"

"What did we just…you know…do?"

"Eric…I think you know what we just did…you _were there, after all."_

"I wasn't talking about that. Where…where do you want this to go?"

"Where do _you_ want this to go, Eric?"

"Syd…I can't be your rebound guy. I can't be your Vaughn substitute."

"I know," you reply quietly.

Yes, you do know.

You know he's not him.

That he'll never be him.

But you want him, want someone in your life who might love you.

You need someone in your life to be real.

And he seems to be it.

"Really?"

"Eric…I can't deny that if Vaughn wasn't married, the chances of us doing this are pretty slim. But…are you interested in seeing if we can make _something out of this?"_

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

  
"Yeah."

And then you kiss him, and snake your arms around his neck, and relationships and Vaughn and amnesia are the _last things on your mind._

*

So you're going to try and make it work. Going to try to make something out of what you both seem to feel.

You told him that he wasn't a rebound guy. That he wasn't going to be a Vaughn substitute.

But the reality is that you _are_ on the rebound, and the reality is that you still think about Vaughn far too much too be healthy.

The reality is- -

You think you're still in love with Vaughn. But you think that you could get used to waking up in Eric Weiss's arms _very_ easily.

In short, the reality is --

You have _no_ idea what you're going to do.

[Although you think that not drinking tequila _ever again is a pretty good step.]_


End file.
